Brief but blunt and refreshing, this interview in TheAtlantic.com with Eric Foner talks about teaching history effectively. Here’s my favorite section (bold at the end is mine): Do you have other specific advice for what teachers can do to more effectively instruct history students? The first thing I would say is that we have to…
Well. Not really new voices, but at least contemporary ones. Today is the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, and I woke up to Eric Foner and a host of NRP personalities reading it out over the airwaves. http://www.npr.org/2013/11/19/246095479/gettysburg-address-turns-150 Like many American middle school students, I had to memorize the first paragraph of the speech,…
Who knew Ken Burns was as good on camera as he is behind it? “We have to keep the wolf from the door. We tell stories to continue ourselves. We all think an exception is going to be made in our case and we’re going to live forever. And being a human is actually arriving…
Happy Halloween! I love this article on Slate from Jefferson Pooley (associate professor of media and communication at Muhlenberg College) and Michael Socolow (associate professor of communication and journalist at the University of Maine) who recently published the book War of the Worlds to Social Media. I haven’t read it, but the article makes me…
I saw this announcement about a new group of folks who are interested in re-branding history so that it once again becomes an unquestionably valued part of our education and lifestyles and thought I would share.
Here’s a thoughtful essay from someone who is using history to find insights into his own dating life and to reflect on some of the mistakes he has made in the past. This information comes up time and time again as people explain and re-explain the many ways that gas-lighting women is part of our…
“If Obamacare is that bad, why did Mr. Nixon, 40 years ago, propose something vaguely similar…I wrote the message sending that bill up to congress.” – Ben Stein, former Nixon speechwriter
We Need History 